Commissioners ask Brooklyn Village developer: "Will we ever finish it?"

Some Mecklenburg County commissioners are interested in exploring other paths forward for Brooklyn Village after the developer said Wednesday that building construction won't start for at least another year and a half.

Why it matters: Local leaders have long planned to redevelop and honor Brooklyn, which was a prosperous Black neighborhood in Uptown's Second Ward before being razed as part of urban renewal in the 1960s and '70s.

• But the project, already years behind schedule, continues to be postponed.

• "There is a significant part of the population that is outraged about how long this is taking," Commissioner ​Elaine Powell told the developer, later asking, "How long can this go on before the bad idea has just become exponentially bad?"

Driving the news: BK Partners — the master development team chosen for the project in 2016 — now says construction on two multi-family buildings won't begin until June 2026. That's nearly a year after the required start date in the contract between Mecklenburg County and BK Partners.

Yes, but: That deadline seems to lack much legal binding.

• It's "conditioned upon a favorable financing and marketability climate," the county told Axios in June.

What they're saying: Donahue Peebles III , of development company The Peebles Corporation, attempted to explain the construction delay Wednesday night to the board of mostly skeptical and fed-up commissioners. He listed economic challenges , from record-high interest rates to an "oversupply" of multi-family housing in Charlotte.

• Peebles' presentation notes that rent is down because of vacancies as a record number of apartments are opening in Charlotte. One slide warns Brooklyn Village's rent would need to be twice the Uptown submarket average "to secure the necessary equity for multifamily development in 2024."
• Peebles also said there were delays in acquiring the land from the county. From 2016 to 2021, they worked to resolve title issues with the city, further prolonging construction.

"There is no group more heavily incentivized to start construction than ours," Peebles said. "As it sits today, we spend more than $315,000 a month on interest, taxes, insurance, repairs and maintenance."

• "This seems like a lose-lose," Commissioner Susan Rodriguez-McDowell said.
• Commissioner Vilma D. Leake, who said she went to church in Brooklyn, asked Peebles, "Will we ever finish it? Will I get to see it?"

The other side: Chair George Dunlap warned commissioners to be cautious of making rash decisions because of the legal contracts involved.

• He noted the deal for Seventh and Tryon , a separate private-public partnership, fell through. The county hasn't found a new developer for that project.

Zoom in: The first phase of Brooklyn Village is supposed to be two buildings with 552 housing units. Of those, 55 are to be affordable for households earning 60% or below the area median income (families of four making less than $45,000 per year).

Zoom out: The entire 10-year redevelopment vision includes a 150-room hotel, another 336 housing units (34 affordable) and 27,588 square feet of retail, along with two office buildings (194,400 square feet and 364,480 square feet).

• But Peebles says because office vacancies are high, the parcels set aside for office are "complicated" and they want to "explore alternatives," such as more multi-family housing.
• Commissioner Mark Jerrell questioned why they were waiting to figure out what the different uses would be.
• "If it's not something that Peebles Corp. can do because of inability to get financing or something like that, I mean, we do have to look at other options," he said. "That's what we owe to the community."

What's next: Commissioners asked the county attorney to review legal documents and report back options. They also want to know what happens if construction doesn't start in 2026.

Catch up quick: BK Partners is a partnership between The Peebles Corporation and Charlotte-based Conformity Corporation. It's done more than $5 million of "horizontal" work at the site, Peebles said, such as demolishing the Walton Plaza building and relocating underground utilities.